


what can i say?

by dizzy



Category: Glee RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-16
Updated: 2014-08-16
Packaged: 2018-02-13 08:21:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2143728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They fucked after exactly a week of living together. Darren's friends told him he was dumb; Chris's didn't say anything, because Chris didn't really have any friends in the city.</p><p>Neither-is-famous au.</p>
            </blockquote>





	what can i say?

They're just two guys. Two out of work actors, brought together by an ad on craigslist a few years back when they were all young, full of heart and hope and spunk, and yeah however you interpret that, you'd be right.

Darren's mother tells him that it's rare to find someone you never question in your life. That kind of trust is reserved for family, for blood, and for your soulmate. Chris says he doesn't believe in soulmates, but he also knows better than to argue with Darren's mother. She is benevolent but firm, and he'd also never risk cutting off the source of his favorite kind of cookie. One day he'll get her to tell him what's in them.

They fucked after exactly a week of living together. Darren's friends told him he was dumb; Chris's didn't say anything, because Chris didn't really have any friends in the city. He's made a few on his own over the years but he's mostly been folded into Darren's group. They're loud, and rowdy, and don't know when to stop or what personal space even is, but Chris has learned to handle them.

Once they realized that this wasn't anther fling for Darren, once they realized Chris could be an anchor in the ways Darren needed without weighing him down in the ways he didn't, once they realized this wasn't typical Darren being head over heels one moment and distracted by a different pretty face the next - they took Chris in, and he's never been loved so well or had so many people in his life he felt like really cared. If Darren gives his life color where it had once been gray, then their friends give it shadows and highlights, add layers that just make Chris all that more able to appreciate what he has.

They're good people. He's glad he has them. They're all the same breed; wannabes, the Hollywood hopefuls. At any moment half of them are out of work, but the sense of community means there's a steady rotation of couch crashing and borrowed twenties and rides offered. Three years and Chris has seen it all from them, he's seen what they are: the tears, the joy of a solid role, the ones that give up and retreat to the safety of smaller cities or mundane jobs, the relationships that form and fall apart, the tension that sparks and snaps, the fuckbuddies and screaming matches and that one gut wrenching funeral.

Gone, but not forgotten.

Their friends fill their life with music and laughter but sometimes there's quiet too, and Chris loves that.

They're two guys - who are, at this moment, napping on a threadbare couch in house all but falling down around them. The alarm is set for one, because Chris has an audition and Darren has his restaurant gig playing for tips and free burgers, and they've only got the one car right now - sold the other during one of those rough months, but they're making it work. Mostly. They fight, sometimes, but who doesn't? Life gets stressful, belts get tight.

They sleep on a mattress on the floor, because after a while it was just more comfortable than trying to duct tape together the slats on the old bed frame. The fridge door doesn't shut quite right so they keep that chair with the wobbly leg that no one sat in anyway beside it to prop it closed, and not only have they made terms with the fact that the bugs are here to stay but they've grown strangely attached. There might even be a process of identifying and naming them, but if you were to ask Chris would scoff and say that's all Darren's idiocy. (Darren would scoff back and say whatever, like Chris doesn't go out of his way to make sure he doesn't step on Steve. And Chris would narrow his eyes and say it's only because Steve is a vindictive fucker and Chris swears he was on his pillow the other night.) The saga of an unsteady truce they have with the insect life is almost enough entertainment to replace the fact that Darren's brother finally changed his Netflix password and their unlimited television supply is cut off.

The laundry situation is getting dire (Chris's rule: if an article of clothing can be smelled from across the room, it's time.) and they're not above scrounging drink machines for leftover change. There's shopping, too, as laughable as their efforts can sometimes be. Darren always gets antsy when the ramen supply starts to run low, which happens more often now because Darren hasn't yet noticed that Chris is trying to quietly ensure he gets at least another fifty years with Darren by lowering the sodium intake and buying canned vegetables instead of pot noodles.

This is not what Chris imagined his life to be. His parents are appalled; his mother has barely talked to him in a year because she doesn't understand why he won't just come back home. There's no way he can make her understand that this isn't the hell she imagines it would be.

It's not perfect, but he loves it and he understands that everything is transitory. One of them will hit it big. It'll happen. Or it won't. Whatever happens, they're two guys who understand that they're pretty fucking lucky to have each other, and that makes everything else seem... not so bad at all.


End file.
